Why I am going to Hell

On my deathbed, I know that I will be crying out for a priest--a Catholic priest would be best--but in this life, I live a life of sin and blasphemy. I do. In more ways than one. I call my Buddhist friend, lovingly--I swear--I call her a heathen. I think it's just because I'm jealous. If I were a Buddhist, life would probably be better for me. I think deep down my mother was a Buddhist, even though she converted Catholic to smooth out any wrinkles in the hearafter for her life and her new husband and for the life of all her yet unbegotten offspring, and those that her offspring begat, and so on and so on. Once I tried to read the Bible cover to cover, but they start if off with the book of Genesis and all that juicy drama, and then they go into who begat who, and it really turns off the 8-12 year old crowd, and well, that's just another reason why I am going to hell--short attention span. I think this whole post will get me several millenia in pergatory. Eh, more time with my Buddhist friends, that's what I say.

But before I totally turn off the whole religious contingent of my viewing audience I'd like to get to the whole point of this entry, which is to say, that I think that I have replaced religion--with all its austere ceremony and history and significance--I have replaced all that with music. All my life nothing has made more sense to me than music. You would think that would make me some kind of music virtuoso or something, but it hasn't. I still can't, for the life of me, figure out what makes a song in six a song in six, (since it's made up of 6 quarter notes, which still doesn't explain why they're not 1/6 notes!!!) or how to even read music. I just know that listening to some music brings tears to me, or makes me weep on the inside, or makes me just want to sit there as patient as anyone inside a cold church on a Sunday, enthralled by what is being presented to me, would. Sometimes I want to cry, listening to music that cries for me--do you know of those songs? The songs that weep for you. That mourn for you. That pull you in, take hold of your hands and express all the complex emotions that you are feeling and just get them out there so that you don't have to do anything but just sit there and listen, and, if you must, clap your hands, or put out a little kiai, even if it's just the slightest of hups.

I am a taiko player. I live for that. But there is music out there that is so powerful for me that it doesn't need the strong downbeat of a don or obvious lyrics or anything but itself to take hold of me and get me to listen. Baaba Maal. Ali Farka Toure. Innocence Mission.

There is nothing in my life that makes more sense to me right now than Baaba Maal singing his heart out even though I have no idea what he is singing about. I just know that I hear the notes of his guitar and the tone of his voice and I can feel what he is trying to convey. Sometimes I am so sad that the tears do not come, but I can listen to Baaba and then I don't need to cry anymore because when I'm done listening to a song everything I needed to feel has already been felt--and I feel better--as if I had cried already.

I don't know if this is a fair comparison with religion. You see: I commit blasphemy. You see, I must truly be a Catholic deep down if I keep insisting that I'm going to hell for making inappropriate comparisons. I am a taiko player. It is who I am. Every song I hear brings me closer to that. I guess what I am saying is that when I came upon my darkest time, the thing that I looked toward to bring me comfort was the music. The thing that made the most sense to me was the music.

How did this post become so philosophical? Go out into the world and expose yourself to as much music as you can--that's all. Or if you can find your own peace in the world with whatever it is that brings you that peace--then so be it. Just make sure it brings you happiness, because that's the most important thing.

Back to School

Ok, so I'm not really going back to school. I'm still paying off the 30 grand of debt I accumulated from my last school. I am, however, looking for things to learn (beats, rhythms, two-handed coordination excercises, claves, rhumbas, 6 time patterns--whatever), and making a list of the things I want to learn, and printing out and downloading and copying out the things I want to learn. And I'm learning some of the things, and I'm planning on learning the other things, and it's all good. I have this habit of wanting to learn things, and then figuring them out, but then I don't really get them into my system. So it's like yes, playing a clave is easy enough, but can I remember it? Do I walk down the hall playing a clave pattern to my steps and do I tap out claves on my desk, and clave the time away while I'm sitting at a red light with my blinker on? No. That's the difference between knowing how to play something, and really having it in your arsenal to recall with ease when it comes time to play that solo or whatever.

Learning is different when you're doing it on your own. By the time I was almost finished with grad school I was sooo ready to be done with school. I remember thinking about how nice it was going to be to just sit down with a book and not have to underline in it and analyze it to death and think about thesis ideas for the next 25-page paper. I read some good books after that. But I think my problem is that I like the pressure of having to learn a pattern by such and such a time. Plus, when you get the pattern down, then you get to play with the other guys and then all the patterns come together and, if you all did your homework, they lock. But I guess all this is preparation for the future, and I need to get the basics down before I can really move on.

Oh and guess what? My friend and I signed up to run Bay to Breakers on May 21. It's a 12k. Did you hear me people? That's right, a 12k. For those of you who suck at math, that's something like 7 miles. Basically we're going to start out on one side of San Francisco (the bay-side) and run all the way across the whole city (which has a giant hill in the middle of it. Giant. Hill.) to the ocean (the breaker-side). I'm telling you, it's insanity. Some people dress up in elaborate costumes. Some people don't care to dress at all. All I want is to finish, and I want my friend to finish too, but we'll see about that. I think they take your picture as you cross the finish line, and I'll post that when it happens. Until then, I'm officially in training.